Xbox leadership and the Xbox brand evaluation *spawn

[iroboto]

In my opinion, currently, the only way to really see what a product is really worth is by looking at global market acceptance.

In group / out group bias is a massive thing that often leads to confirmation bias as well. I wouldn’t say global market acceptance is the only way; every perspective is subject to its flaws.

A large majority of games start big and trail off from their peak. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case with hardware, without price drops, or new content there’s nothing there to spur more consumer purchasing.

If people are looking for a simple measurement; revenue is the metric that encapsulates consumer ingestion.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

And yet despite that, Xbox revenue (which is mostly games as hardware sales are only half of PS5s) is roughly 75% of PlayStation revenue going by industry analyst numbers. That indicates roughly similar gaming revenue (revenue generated by games) for Xbox as for PlayStation.

Keep in mind some games for MS will never appear on a sales chart because they are GAAS. Sea of Thieves, for example, generates a healthy amount of revenue but will never appear on a sales chart. If you want to look at sales data, you should use World Wide sales data.

MS also spreads this out among smaller experimental new-IP titles that will never hit sales charts but still sell well to people in those niches.

So yes, MS may not sell as many games for any single title as Sony but their games make about as much money for them as games make for Sony. Although it would be more correct to say their platform (Xbox) generates a similar amount of game revenue as PlayStation.

That said, this is still problematic for them as they also have more studios and thus a higher aggregated development cost from all of those studios that is mitigated by many of those studios having a smaller non-AAA budget. IE - some of the studios will be cheaper to operate than any of Sony's internal studios.

At the end of the day, what matters for the company is if revenue and more importantly operating income are increasing. And both of those are increasing for Xbox.

Regards,
SB

In reality, for the matter of this discussion, revenue means nothing... What is the operating margin? what are the profits?
I know operating income is increasing, but I only know that it happens in the form of a percentage!
And Percentages are very tricky. Its very nice to say. I sold 100% more! But if I sold one, and now two, the 100% means nothing. So context values are missing here!
I must remember that Gamepass means a great revenue stream... 25 million users paying 15 euros means 375 millions monthly and 4.5 billions yearly.
Yet, is Gamepass Profitable? Other subscription services with lots more users, and lower new content are strugling.
So, as gamepass is concerned, nobody really nows if it is really profitable, and if it is.... by how much? Values of context would be nice! Not percentages.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I don't actually believe Phil is giving up on EU, but just recognizing the reality on the ground there. It's a true struggle.

It's also silly to suggest these 25:1 bullshit ratios that are a snapshot in time when the reality is that PS5:XS ratio is more like 2:1 (50 million to 25 million units) world-wide 3 years into the generation.

The Xbox strategy seems to be - let Sony sell 120 million PS5s and generate X revenue and we'll sell 60 million units and generate 75% of X revenue and we'll also sell another 20 million GP subs on PC and we'll do just fine, especially if the cloud stuff eventually becomes viable 5-10 years down the road.

That might not be what the Xbox fan on the streets of Marseilles might want to hear, but that's probably the strategy that keeps investors happy.

From a gamer perspective, how am I as a gamer going to be upset when for $150 from September 2023 -> end of 2024 I'm getting Age of Empires IV, Sea of Stars, Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Lies of P, Dead Space Remake, Jusant, Persona 5 Tactica, Persona 3 Reload, new content for Sea of Thieves, Halo, and Vampire Survivors, and then Hollow Knight: Silksong, City Skylines II, Ara, Towerborne, Hellblade 2, Avowed, Flight Sim 2024, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 and likely (not for sure) Diablo IV and Call of Duty 2024? That's a fantastic GP lineup coming. 40 studios! Thank you Phil!

 

[BitByte]

All you're interested in is ranting from your perspective and dismissing every argument to present an objective, reasoned argument. If you don't like Metacritic, fine, but come up with a measure you do like and use that to compare and contrast XB over the years, and Sony over the years to get a baseline. Until someone does the leg-work, this thread is just subjective ranting.

I did present compelling evidence in the case of steam reviews which are backed by hundreds of thousands of people who played the game. You conveniently ignored it. You claim of me dismissing objective reasoned arguments are funny. if there were objective reasoned arguments, I would have acknowledged them.

What measure are you going to use to determine how well MS (and Sony) are doing and have been doing the past three generations? What evidence can you point to to show games are getting worse? Pick a metric besides your own feelings and present the evidence that illustrates your objective point.

There in lies the problem, this is not a console comparison thread, its a microsoft thread discussing the degradation in quality of Microsoft games. Some including yourself are trying to drag other publishers into it. Now to address your unfounded criticism of my ranting, objective metrics, bias, blah blah blah, I've compiled a set of charts to highlight the degradation in quality. I've used your favorite "objective source" metacritic to highlight a degradation in quality as a whole. I've done this to show that my arguments are rooted in facts while many here are rooted in feelings and sentiment.

Warning: Chart Heavy

Let us start with Halo.

As we can see, there's a drop in quality with each mainline release. We can see again that the user score is not aligned with the critic score highlighting that the critics got it wrong.

Forza Motorsport:

Forza's decline is again visible but not as bad as Halo's. Notice the difference in user score vs critic scores. Very large difference.

Gears of War:

Another gradual decline in quality here with each mainline release. Coincidentally, Gears 5 is the first time we see that the critics and users agree.

State of Decay:

Great name for the series considering the review scores. Yet another decline.

Forza Horizon:

Considered Microsoft's most consistent series. It's funny though, the critic scores go up but the user score goes down. It's a good game and one of the best performers we'll see today.

Crackdown:

Yet another declining series.

To be continued.....

 

[BitByte]

Continuing on from my previous post, lets look at the Ori series next.


A great game and one that bucks the trend of a general decline in quality. The user and critic scores are closely aligned showing that this is a series where the critics got it right.

Fable Series:

The only thing we can say here is that there's a perceived decline according to the users. The franchise is shelved I believe.

Flight Simulator:

Flight Simulator is a stable series in terms of reviews with FSX being the outlier. Notice the huge gulf in userscore vs critic score suggesting that the critics were wrong once again. Personally speaking, I like the series and it's one I play often till this day.

Miscellaneous Exclusives:

There's no real trend to see here. This chart just highlights the Metascore vs User score for each random exclusive.

Dead Rising Series:

Here again we see another decline in quality with each iteration. Nothing much to add.


Minecraft:

Another decline in quality although these are different type of games.

Let's Look at Phil Spencer's Performance as a whole.


It's clear to see that prior to Phil Spencer taking over Xbox as a whole in 2014, titles scored higher with both users and critics. Since he's taken over, we've seen a drop in both ratings.

Key takeaways:

• 8 out 11 franchises saw a decline in quality with each mainline release
• There's a drastic difference in user score vs critic score suggesting that the critics are overrating games
• The franchises tended to score higher earlier in the lifecycle often aligning with OG Xbox or Xbox 360
• There are more 90 rated games in the OG Xbox / Xbox 360 era than there are in the Series / Xbox One era
• Of the recent releases, only Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon 5 and Ori the will of the wisp touch the 90s.
• Contrary to popular belief, I'm not ranting and my "opinions" align with the data.

Discuss....

 

[iroboto]

Discuss....

So, objectively speaking, None of these charts actually work as you’ve drawn them as a time series without equal weighting on time differentiation between titles. They aren’t equal and each title is likely very different to the last. The time delta for some titles is drastic which means on a long enough time scale these scores have less relevance in their relationship with each other.

If these were annual releases you’d have a stronger graph, but with titles like Halo and FM being 5+ years apart, it’s a very weak relationship.

Some of the factors that change with time: game design, technology, player base, and of course bias.

If you aren’t using these graphs as a time series, like you did not with misc exclusive titles one could re-arrange the titles order to show upward trending instead.

You would be better off graphing MAUs to get an understanding of the health of Xbox studios. It would compensate for moving population between titles, and compensate for players switching hardware platforms but still using Xbox.

 

[BitByte]

So, objectively speaking, None of these charts actually work as you’ve drawn them as a time series without equal weighting on time differentiation between titles. They aren’t equal and each title is likely very different to the last. The time delta for some titles is drastic which means on a long enough time scale these scores have less relevance in their relationship with each other.

If these were annual releases you’d have a stronger graph, but with titles like Halo and FM being 5+ years apart, it’s a very weak relationship.

Some of the factors that change with time: game design, technology, player base, and of course bias.

Very much disagree. Change in game design, technology and player base is irrelevant as is the time between mainline entries. The question is did the games meet the benchmark of quality set forth by the player base and critics. The answer is no. Every other studio faces this same issue and when graphed in the same way, some can show an upward trend. Just look at red dead redemption for example.

If you aren’t using these graphs as a time series, like you did not with misc exclusive titles one could re-arrange the titles order to show upward trending instead.

I get what you're saying here and that could be true but it would still be lower on the graph when compared to the 360. If you drew a line of best fit throughout the 360 to the series generation, it would still be on the decline.

You would be better off graphing MAUs to get an understanding of the health of Xbox studios.

MAUs were invented because sales were so poor that Microsoft requested that they not be disclosed. MAUs means nothing and is an irrelevant metric. How is it even counted? Nobody knows. How do we even know that the data is correct and isn't tainted? Nobody knows. Have they changed their methodology of counting? Nobody knows. Furthermore, nobody was counting MAUs in the OG Xbox and 360 days so it cannot be used for anything. It's just a number that Microsoft spits out with no 3rd party source to verify it. It's garbage data.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I did present compelling evidence in the case of steam reviews which are backed by hundreds of thousands of people who played the game. You conveniently ignored it.

I didn't 'conveniently ignore it'. You presented a tiny slice of data that's irrelevant for comparing Xbox and console because they are Steam user reviews! There are no Steam User Reviews for people playing games on Xbox and PlayStation.

There in lies the problem, this is not a console comparison thread, its a microsoft thread discussing the degradation in quality of Microsoft games.

It wasn't clear you weren't talking about the Xbox console when you said "Xbox Games." That's on MS for muddling their hardware and software. Now we have a clearer understanding of the position.

I've compiled a set of charts to highlight the degradation in quality.

So actually done work to prove your point. good. Now we can argue objectively.

I've used your favorite "objective source" metacritic

Don't be arsy. Metacritic isn't my 'favourite soruce'. It was a suggestion. It's just infinitely better than you saying stuff sucks because you say it does without any point of reference other people can argue about. How are people supposed to refute "MS games are getting worse" if they're just supposed to take your word for it? Now you've presented a case, people who disagree with you ned to argue the facts in front of them.

The need for other developers is to see if trends are MS specific or wider. eg. Do all series have reducing metacritic scores? Your argument against Phil requires XB games to be doing worse than other parallels; otherwise Phil is no worse than everyone else.

 

[BitByte]

I didn't 'conveniently ignore it'. You presented a tiny slice of data that's irrelevant for comparing Xbox and console because they are Steam user reviews! There are no Steam User Reviews for people playing games on Xbox and PlayStation.

Ok but I'm only discussing Xbox. I don't care about playstation.

It wasn't clear you weren't talking about the Xbox console when you said "Xbox Games." That's on MS for muddling their hardware and software. Now we have a clearer understanding of the position.

So actually done work to prove your point. good. Now we can argue objectively.

Don't be arsy. Metacritic isn't my 'favourite soruce'. It was a suggestion. It's just infinitely better than you saying stuff sucks because you say it does without any point of reference other people can argue about. How are people supposed to refute "MS games are getting worse" if they're just supposed to take your word for it? Now you've presented a case, people who disagree with you ned to argue the facts in front of them.

The need for other developers is to see if trends are MS specific or wider. eg. Do all series have reducing metacritic scores? Your argument against Phil requires XB games to be doing worse than other parallels; otherwise Phil is no worse than everyone else.

Including other developers is a much wider analysis that I don't have the time to do currently. I'll do it later with even more data. What we can say though is Phil is doing worse when compared to his predecessors and that in itself is a problem.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Discuss....

I think overall your point has little supporting evidence as plenty here isn't particularly valid IMO, Firstly, reliance on User Scores for your reference. According to that, Naughty Dog's last two games have been terrible. The Last of Us and Part II scored 84 and 93 respectively with reviewers but only 59 and 58 with users. Gran Turismo 7 scores 87 with critics, largely in keeping with franchise averages, while only managing 23 with users. I don't think user scores are reliable. Sales is probably a better indicator

Secondly, some of your charts are just two or three titles, State of Decay doesn't represent a trend. How well do second-title sequels compare on average? Is the drop here for State of Decay uniquely MS messing things up, or quite usual for sequels?

The only particularly valid series for your argument I see are the first three major franchises. These show an obvious downward trend for critic scores. That could be evidence of reducing quality across MS releases, but only if that trend is atypical of all releases over 5+ iterations.

As for the summary, a lower average with Phil, that might not be indicative of worse performance but more diversity. Publishing smaller, simpler, less popular titles could drop a Metacritic average while the major titles could be improving. I'd prefer to just look at the major series in terms of ratings as an idea of quality, and game sales. Although sales is now very hard to compare thanks to GP being a way many millions will get their MS games.

 

[BitByte]

I think overall your point has little supporting evidence as plenty here isn't particularly valid IMO, Firstly, reliance on User Scores for your reference. According to that, Naughty Dog's last two games have been terrible. The Last of Us and Part II scored 84 and 93 respectively with reviewers but only 59 and 58 with users. Gran Turismo 7 scores 87 with critics, largely in keeping with franchise averages, while only managing 23 with users. I don't think user scores are reliable. Sales is probably a better indicator

What reliance on user scores? User scores are just an accompanying metric that are aside from the point. They have declining critic scores which validates the theory that Microsoft is performing worse when compared to their historical scores. This is a fact that cannot be disputed as the data shows it, end of story. Why they're performing worse is not my concern. I can speculate, i can theorize but, the only thing that is certain is that there's a strong correlation between Phil Spencer and worse performance. Secondly, I hate the user score narrative as its such a lazy argument. We should believe critics who get their games for free and have a corrupt relationship with the publishers acting as just another pr arm. However people who spend their money on the game and share their opinions are less trustworthy? Its a very bad take. The second portion of the post is just a Fallacy of Unrepresentative Samples. The scores you referenced are protest scores which constitute a minority of user scores on metacritic and even less on steam. There are over 14000 games listed on Metacritic. You couldn't even name 140 games whose user score was negatively affected by protest scores and that would only constitute 1% of the games on Metacritic. Finally, if you want to see sales figures, you're out of luck. Other than a few analyst who release sales figures on twitter, Microsoft has barred the release of any sales related xbox data. I know this because I review their financial statements and pr releases quarterly. Overall I cannot agree with what you've raised here.

Secondly, some of your charts are just two or three titles, State of Decay doesn't represent a trend. How well do second-title sequels compare on average? Is the drop here for State of Decay uniquely MS messing things up, or quite usual for sequels?

Why it dropped is irrelevant. That is neither the consumer's concern nor my concern. All we know is that it performed worse and it did so while under Spencer. The data is not here to explain why it dropped but to show that it dropped.

The only particularly valid series for your argument I see are the first three major franchises. These show an obvious downward trend for critic scores. That could be evidence of reducing quality across MS releases, but only if that trend is atypical of all releases over 5+ iterations.

At this point, I cannot even continue this discussion anymore. I do not feel that you're arguing in good faith. We definitely will not see eye to eye on this and I'm fine with that. People don't have to agree all the time.

 

[Globalisateur]

I don't actually believe Phil is giving up on EU, but just recognizing the reality on the ground there. It's a true struggle.

It's also silly to suggest these 25:1 bullshit ratios that are a snapshot in time when the reality is that PS5:XS ratio is more like 2:1 (50 million to 25 million units) world-wide 3 years into the generation.

The Xbox strategy seems to be - let Sony sell 120 million PS5s and generate X revenue and we'll sell 60 million units and generate 75% of X revenue and we'll also sell another 20 million GP subs on PC and we'll do just fine, especially if the cloud stuff eventually becomes viable 5-10 years down the road.

Very doubtful based on their current sales trajectory (they are currently down YoY even in US). Down YoY during the 3rd year is not good.

 

[metacore]

maybe its good place mention this ;

Another thing somehow flying under the radar is how often games from Microsoft Studios are shamlesly donwgraded compared to initial reveals. And those are real downgrades in many aspects not some ridiclous puddlegate. More they underscore technical achivements , more they didn't reach that promise in the end. It shows organizational or politics problems in their studios.

Compare this Halo infinite trailer to final effort, not even on the same page of fidelity.

forza motorsport, noticably downgraded but heavly in raytracing department

And my favorite Hellblade 2

initial reaveal

gameplay

Downgrade across the board, particullary shenua model and animations. Now it looks like some LOD3 version compared to initial reveal.

 

[see colon]

Another thing somehow flying under the radar is how often games from Microsoft Studios are shamlesly donwgraded compared to initial reveals. And those are real downgrades in many aspects not some ridiclous puddlegate. More they underscore technical achivements , more they didn't reach that promise in the end. It shows organizational or politics problems in their studios.

This is for sure an Xbox problem. It's also an industry wide problem, with the likes of every Ubisoft release trailer, CDProject, and many Sony titles. But 100% Xbox deserves to be raked over the coals for bullshots and misleading trailers.

Regarding puddlegate... This is the thing that really gets under my skin about it. DF did what amounts to a PR video on it dismissing the concerns of customers because the game still features cube maps+SSR and the demo was shown in realtime so it wasn't some offline render... But from my perspective, they still showed off something that was an unrealistic representation of what the final game offered. The demo had a finely tuned cube map reflection that wasn't featured in the game. And maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I don't care if a console can technically produce visuals of a certain visual fidelity in a small scale demo if that demo is being used to sell me on a full scale game that doesn't feature that level of fidelity. And at the end of the day, I don't care if it's a manpower issue, or a performance issue, or what. Don't sell me something that's different from what I'm paying for. I feel the same way about trailers showing off 60FPS gameplay when a game ships at 30. Or even worse, trailers rendered at 15 FPS on real hardware and played back at 30. Don't show me "what the system can technically do", show me what you are able to achieve in game.

No one should be let off the hook for this, and I wish there was more of a sustained push against the practice.

 

[B m A]

I don't actually believe Phil is giving up on EU, but just recognizing the reality on the ground there. It's a true struggle.

It's also silly to suggest these 25:1 bullshit ratios that are a snapshot in time when the reality is that PS5:XS ratio is more like 2:1 (50 million to 25 million units) world-wide 3 years into the generation.

The Xbox strategy seems to be - let Sony sell 120 million PS5s and generate X revenue and we'll sell 60 million units and generate 75% of X revenue and we'll also sell another 20 million GP subs on PC and we'll do just fine, especially if the cloud stuff eventually becomes viable 5-10 years down the road.

That might not be what the Xbox fan on the streets of Marseilles might want to hear, but that's probably the strategy that keeps investors happy.

From a gamer perspective, how am I as a gamer going to be upset when for $150 from September 2023 -> end of 2024 I'm getting Age of Empires IV, Sea of Stars, Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Lies of P, Dead Space Remake, Jusant, Persona 5 Tactica, Persona 3 Reload, new content for Sea of Thieves, Halo, and Vampire Survivors, and then Hollow Knight: Silksong, City Skylines II, Ara, Towerborne, Hellblade 2, Avowed, Flight Sim 2024, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 and likely (not for sure) Diablo IV and Call of Duty 2024? That's a fantastic GP lineup coming. 40 studios! Thank you Phil!

I’m sorry, but the way you keep repeating “thank you Phil” sounds childish. It’s like the reason they are consolidating are to be the good guys and make gaming more accesible.

It’s about Microsoft we are talking here, just be rational and you’ll see that ultimately they want to be a very big slice of gaming relevant content, having a service everyone wants. And then, they make a good price raise and have a good profitability.

Will they be able to do this? We don’t know. But don’t be naive.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What reliance on user scores?

We can see again that the user score is not aligned with the critic score highlighting that the critics got it wrong.

Isn't that telling us us to ignore the critics who 'got it wrong' and instead use the user scores?

This is a fact that cannot be disputed as the data shows it, end of story.

The graphs go down. Whether those downward graphs are meaningful or not though is a matter of consideration. You feel two games in a series that goes down echos the continuing downward trend. You also show a graph of three completely different games, and a graph of completely independent games. they are statistically meaningful. Better would be a timeline of all titles if you are going to mix and match like that.

We should believe critics who get their games for free and have a corrupt relationship with the publishers acting as just another pr arm. However people who spend their money on the game and share their opinions are less trustworthy? Its a very bad take.

However the critics operate, they are consistent. Whatever bribery and corruption MS employed to get their higher scores, they would be doing the same and getting the same relative scores, no? Why do critic scores go down for MS in your thinking when MS can just buy better scores?? I don't see how your two ideas can coexist. If critic scores aren't meaningful because they can be bought and influenced, why do games get bad scores?

The scores you referenced are protest scores which constitute a minority of user scores on metacritic and even less on steam.

Precisely the point. How do you know what scores are what? That's why user scores aren't reliable. You never know who is voting and for what reason.

At this point, I cannot even continue this discussion anymore. I do not feel that you're arguing in good faith.

Not at all. I'm ready to be convinced Spencer is bad for MS, when I see evidence that makes sense to me. I've seen your evidence and explained why I don't think most is applicable, but I've agreed the major franchises do show an average downturn that could support your point - only without a 'control' to measure it against, it's not conclusive.

 

[metacore]

This is for sure an Xbox problem. It's also an industry wide problem, with the likes of every Ubisoft release trailer, CDProject, and many Sony titles. But 100% Xbox deserves to be raked over the coals for bullshots and misleading trailers.

Regarding puddlegate... This is the thing that really gets under my skin about it. DF did what amounts to a PR video on it dismissing the concerns of customers because the game still features cube maps+SSR and the demo was shown in realtime so it wasn't some offline render... But from my perspective, they still showed off something that was an unrealistic representation of what the final game offered. The demo had a finely tuned cube map reflection that wasn't featured in the game. And maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I don't care if a console can technically produce visuals of a certain visual fidelity in a small scale demo if that demo is being used to sell me on a full scale game that doesn't feature that level of fidelity. And at the end of the day, I don't care if it's a manpower issue, or a performance issue, or what. Don't sell me something that's different from what I'm paying for. I feel the same way about trailers showing off 60FPS gameplay when a game ships at 30. Or even worse, trailers rendered at 15 FPS on real hardware and played back at 30. Don't show me "what the system can technically do", show me what you are able to achieve in game.

No one should be let off the hook for this, and I wish there was more of a sustained push against the practice.

Obviously, no one should be left off the hook for this, but actually ubisoft had problems at beginning of last gen, but now they mostly deliver. Sony ? in their case, since ps 4 small upgrades are more common than something like that funny puddlegate. Certainly puddlegate was nothingburger compared to notorious downgrades on Microsoft side, even with day one pc version they are struggling to deliver initial vision. I tought good guy Philip would not allow this time and time again.

 

[function]

There are two problems with user reviews:

- People are increasingly childish with regards to review bombing. See Starfield and it not supporting DLSS, or any game that goes Epic Store exclusive.

- Due to the likes of Gamepass, people are increasingly trying games that they don't like, and blaming the game when it's simply a matter of taste. Look at all the chuds down rating Flight Simulator.

Everyone thinks that they're the main character, and everything about a game should cater to their tastes. If you don't like flight simulators, you're not going to like Flight Simulator. Morons.

Not everything is for you.

That said, MS do also have problems with really nailing their software. 343i don't seem to know what people want especially in campaign, and flail around wildly.

 

[RobertR1]

Phil says all the right things and is likeable. However, under his leadership, the Xbox brand just appears disorganized and going in separate directions.

Some days it's about selling consoles, then it's about PC, then we want Cloud gaming on all devices, now lets buy all these studios. Goes on an on.

If there's a masterplan, it's well hidden. I personally don't think there is. It's seems more of a fishing expedition by a company with a ton of cash to play with to see where they can strike gold.

 

[iroboto]

Very much disagree. Change in game design, technology and player base is irrelevant as is the time between mainline entries. The question is did the games meet the benchmark of quality set forth by the player base and critics. The answer is no. Every other studio faces this same issue and when graphed in the same way, some can show an upward trend. Just look at red dead redemption for example

Some considerations as to why it’s critical to keep the time factor in if you intend to do any trending or series analysis.
A) seasonality and large scale trending
I appreciate the step to chart these but by removing the time element you aren’t taking into account global factors that are occurring or trending that could and likely be trending elsewhere. For example with seasonality you haven’t checked if game scores naturally ebb and flow, and to do this you need to graph all games possible over a long period to see this, perhaps certain release dates are granted higher scores than others. Etc.

Secondly, need to see how reviewing has changed from well before 360 to todays generation, by removing the time component and not charting all titles scores we wouldn’t be able to see that in general game scores have been declining over time. I’m not making that claim, but we haven’t checked it and it’s worth checking. It’s a bit like saying I’m going to take 2 weather measurements many years apart at specific months in a city to prove climate change isn’t happening. There’s more to be checked before a conclusion should be made.

the way I would approach this without doing a time series graph is to leverage mean, median and mode and compare Xbox titles against the genre of games they should fall under, or just compare all of Xbox games against all of the rest and see where it lies. That would be a more representative metric of where their games lie in comparison to the rest, of course to remove seasonality we would compare just this generation of titles. If you want to work with seasonality a lot of work needs to be done.

I get what you're saying here and that could be true but it would still be lower on the graph when compared to the 360. If you drew a line of best fit throughout the 360 to the series generation, it would still be on the decline.

The problem with the line of best fit is that when you have so few points it doesn’t really say anything at all. The other issue is that games are bound to be locked at the upper ceiling of review scores, and typically no games score 0 so the line of best fit isnt really suited for trending in this case. Almost all franchise series are bound to be in decline. If you started at 95, you are not likely to continually score that amount or go higher, so you’re headed towards decline.

So there’s another way to do it, and that’s why median and mode matter here, you want to toss the extremities and see where the bulk of scores are landing. You will want to use the population method of taking large samples of data points combined and comparing it against the population.

So if the mode and median of Xbox titles is quite high, I wouldn’t say that they are on decline.

MAUs were invented because sales were so poor that Microsoft requested that they not be disclosed. MAUs means nothing and is an irrelevant metric. How is it even counted? Nobody knows. How do we even know that the data is correct and isn't tainted? Nobody knows. Have they changed their methodology of counting? Nobody knows. Furthermore, nobody was counting MAUs in the OG Xbox and 360 days so it cannot be used for anything. It's just a number that Microsoft spits out with no 3rd party source to verify it. It's garbage data.

maus are actually a very common metric used for any platform service. The more active users means the more likely they will stay subscribed. There are issues of course around it, like it doesn’t tell you how active they are, but generally when MAUs drop that is a signal they will stop engaging with the platform and leave it.

The MAUs are calculated by platform for Xbox, so console PC and mobile are all separated but the number they present to investors is the combined amount. To obtain a MAU someone needs to log into the service whether that is auto login or not, each unique user is only counted once per month regardless of how little or much they use of the service.

In the console space Sony is about 120M vs Xbox 60M. But when tying PC and mobile Xbox is 120M+.

Which is an important consideration for them if the company intends to migrate users away from console hardware.